We decided to spend Christmas in Portland with my parents for a variety of reasons. My mom’s pug Jasmine died suddenly right after Thanksgiving and she was feeling blue. We hadn’t done a shred of decorating with all of the other goings on, so it wasn’t feeling so Christmasy at our place. T had to work on Friday, so it was going to be a quick trip.
My mom had put up a pretty tree:
And had a nice menu planned with some tasty appetizers, which were very popular:
and a spinach quiche (it was less eggy than a typical quiche, so I’d describe it more like a spinach pie… )
And a cranberry pie for dessert. (I’d never heard of a cranberry pie, apparently it was something my maternal grandmother used to make.)
Combine that with some wine and it was shaping up to be quite a nice holiday. Christmas morning was filled with gifts:
And even some whimsical hats (they say bah humbug on them):
I’d prepped a baked caramel french toast the night before, which came out really well:
Luckily, we had a ten mile tempo run on our training plan to burn some of it off. Even with the rain that started the minute we started running, it was actually a really enjoyable run. There were a surprising number of other runners out and everyone was in a cheery mood. Not a bad way to spend Christmas, all things considered.
